Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to object tracking, and more specifically, to the use of variational track management in tracking moving objects.
Background of the Invention
Object tracking is the use of measurements of position, velocity, acceleration, and other kinematic parameters, to obtain an accurate determination of the positions of one or more moving objects. The field of object tracking is broad and possesses many applications, particularly in radar/sonar, robotics, and computer vision. When tracing an object, a system constructs a track that estimates the trajectory of the object over time. Where multiple objects are tracked, object tracking generally involves three steps. The first step is a data assignment process, in which various measurements are matched to existing tracks. This matching can often be supplemented by non-kinematic features of the plurality of moving objects, such as a radar cross-section in radar, or a color or shape in visual spectrum tracking, to more easily distinguish among the moving objects when the kinematic data is ambiguous. A second step is a filtering process, in which the assigned data is used to update the positions of the various objects to reduce or eliminate measurement error. Finally, a track management component utilizes various heuristics to remove or add tracks as needed due to clutter, or spurious measurements, or objects arriving in or leaving a region of interest. While there will be communication among the components performing these three functions, they generally act substantially independently.